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Journal: July- September 2002 > Observation Deck
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You
are here : Home >
Journal: July- September 2002 > Observation Deck
From the Observation Deck
Summer has come at last after a chilly Spring in Seattle! I am playing lots of tennis, taking advantage of our sunny days and blue skies. When my game is not so sunny, I often recall the words a tennis coach imprinted firmly in my mind many years ago: "Keep your eye on the ball!. . .Bend your knees!. . . Get your racket back!" Seems to me his words also have much to do with making positive changes in education.
"Keep your eye on the ball!" It is critically important to have a clear image of where we are going in education, but equally important to focus on the issue at hand: how to help a failing student to master new skills essential to learning more successfully; how to bring what might be perceived as a "boring" subject to life; how to raise test scores without abandoning the activities that motivate and engage students.
"Bend your knees!" Flexibility is essential in times of rapid change. I remember hearing once that the first space ship to reach the moon was not on a direct course much of the time. Flexibility allows us to adapt to changing conditions: growing diversity of students who have many different ways of learning; new standards and new kinds of assessments; new methods to learn in order to help students master basic skills.
"Get your racket back!" Today's schools need to prepare for the unexpected. Anticipation and preparation have never been more important: when we discover that budget cuts are forthcoming, we start "thinking outside the dots" and plan new ways to achieve our goals; when we know that increasing numbers of students need help that schools cannot offer we find ways to integrate social services into the school program; when the needs of the community change we collaborate and respond.
Keeping such useful metaphors in mind may be one way to keep improving our game! Do you have some metaphors you would like to share? We'll pass them along.
Copyright © July 2002 New Horizons for Learning, all rights reserved.
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